Page 4 of The Picasso Heist
“Good match so far,” the man says, leaning slightly toward me. “Very entertaining, no?” He’s got a thick Eastern European accent. His breath reeks of cigarettes, two packs a day.
I know he wasn’t sitting there a minute ago. Now he is. That’s what I get for being so focused on placing my bet in time.
“Yeah. It’s pretty good tennis,” I answer, staring straight ahead. I don’t look at him.
“Who are you rooting for?” he asks.
It’s a harmless question but I know this guy’s anything but harmless. He’s not trying to be menacing. He doesn’t have to try. It clearly comes naturally.Keep it together now, Halston. Breathe in, breathe out…
“I don’t know who I’m rooting for,” I say. “I guess I don’t really care who wins.”
I can feel and smell him leaning in even closer. “Yeah, but if you had to bet,” he whispers, “who would you bet on?”
For the first time, I turn to him. He’s got greasy dark hair combed across his forehead in a guillotine-like slant. He’s smiling. He’s also big. No,thickis a better word. His forearms, folded tight against his chest, look to be the size of ham hocks. I’m guessing they’re covered in tattoos, but I can’t see them because he’s wearing a tragically ugly teal windbreaker. Never mind there’s not a cloud in the sky, we’re in late August, and it’s pushing ninety degrees.
“What do you want?” I ask.
What he wants first is to show me the gun he’s got tucked in his waistband underneath the windbreaker. The second thing he wants is my earpiece. He sticks out his palm. “Hand it over,” he says. “Along with your phone.”
The next game in the match has just gone to deuce on Green’s serve. I would’ve been placing another bet after the following point.How much of this are you hearing, Skip?
I glance down again at the gun the guy’s got tucked into his waistband and then back up at his eyes. I’m wearing sunglasses; he’s not. He wants me to be able to see his eyes. I could play stupid and ask,What earpiece?But stupid won’t get me anywhere. Coy is a different story, though. Coy buys me a little time.
“We both know you’re not about to shoot me in front of all these people, and you’re not going to throw me over your shoulder or drag me out of here kicking and screaming,” I say. “So what’s to stop me from standing up and heading for the first cop I see? There’s lots of them around here, in case you haven’t noticed.”
He laughs. “Such a clever girl, huh? But we also both know you’re not going to do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because we found you, that’s why. Now we’ll always be able to find you, Halston.” He really enjoys saying my name, showing me that he knows it. “Come with me now and we won’t hurt you,” he says. “But if you don’t come with me now? We’ll definitely hurt you.”
I think it over for a few seconds, or at least I act as if that’s what I’m doing. My mind’s been made up since the very second this guy sat down. Meanwhile, Red wins the next point with an overhead slam, the ball careening into the stands. I look up at Lucas, crammed in his umpire chair, as he methodically inputs the score change. Damn; I could’ve placed ten bets in the time that took.
But my courtsiding days are over for now. I’ve officially been caught.
I take out my earpiece and hand it and my phone over to my new friend in the ugly teal windbreaker.
“Okay, you win,” I say. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER3
HE FOLLOWS MEout of the stands, staying a few steps behind me and talking only when he needs to tell me left, right, or keep going straight. I glance back over my shoulder just once, not at his lumpy face but down at his Gucci-wannabe shoes with inch-high heels that scrape on the pavement, first one, then the other, sounding like a rusted metronome.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks when I make a sharp turn that he didn’t instruct me to take.
“I’m thirsty,” I answer.
He looks and sees the water fountain against the wall to our left. What I don’t think he sees is the security camera about twenty yards away from it. He of course knows there are cameras everywhere at the tournament but he most likely doesn’t realize that this is how the police will know I didn’t leave alone. I had company, and it’s the guy cooling his cheap one-inch heels behind me while I bend at the waist and take a long sip. No one’s ever going to mistake the two of us for boyfriendand girlfriend. I turn around, take another glance at his greasy hair and that god-awful teal windbreaker.Ugh. At least I hope not.
He falls in step behind me again, definitely closer now. “Up ahead, just outside the gate,” he says. “The Uber lot.”
We leave the grounds, passing a couple of cops along the way. I don’t look at them, staring instead at the huge black Cadillac Escalade with tinted windows that’s idling behind a couple of rows of late-model Nissan Sentras and Toyota Camrys doing pickups and drop-offs. The most unsurprising sentence of the day is when he announces that our destination is the Escalade. As we near it, he walks in front of me, then opens the back passenger door and points inside. The second I get in, I see another huge, hulking guy sitting by the opposite window; he tells me to slide over. He’s also got an Eastern European accent, although not quite as thick. I move to the middle seat, and Mr. Ugly Teal Windbreaker climbs in next to me and slams the door shut.
And just like that, I’m the meat in a goon sandwich.
Faster than you can sayrodeo,my wrists are zip-tied tight together. My wig and sunglasses are yanked off, a black pillowcase is pulled over my head, and I officially can’t see where we’re going. The driver, who I didn’t get a good look at, takes off, but not before turning up the radio in case I decide to scream. Why they didn’t gag me too, I don’t know. Then again, who says a mob abduction has to be an exercise in airtight logic?
I’m not about to scream. There’s no point. Besides, it would only make it hotter underneath this pillowcase, the fabric of which likely possesses the thread count of industrial sandpaper. I remain silent, as do the other three, while Bruce Springsteen belts out “Rosalita.” Only when we speed up and merge onto what I’m guessing is Grand Central Parkway does the radio get turned down. Still, no one talks until about twenty minutes later when we veer onto an exit, slowing down. That’s when I make an announcement. “I have to pee,” I say.
